 Fel gweithdo iawn, Zelda. Yn путwmeth o'r cyflawn Newspaper Cymru, mae'n gweithio ar gyfer y cyflawn Newspaper Cymru yn y badeu gyda ffordd o'r gweithio, am y cyflawn newydd. Y gweithio am y badeu gan ein pan, dyma'r ymgyrch iawn gallwn cyflawn newydd o gynyddoedd o'r cynyddol gynhau gyda'r Padaf i ddyn nhw'n fydd yng Haloff. Tochong henw, rwy'n gwneud. Fel gweithio i ddysgu cyflawn Newspaper Cymru, Ysgolwg yma ar gyfer y Sgolwg Ffand-Enterham. We took evidence on the Scottish Welfare Fund from a range of local authorities in the Minister for Housing and Welfare on the 18 March. It is expected that these evidence sessions will form the committee's work on the Scottish Welfare Fund Bill, which we expect to be introduced next month. I would like to welcome back Dr Philip Schill, research associate, the School of the Bill environment at Heriot-Watt University to give evidence to the committee on the fourth of March on another study he conducted for the Scottish government on food aid. I'd also like to welcome his colleague Mandy Littlewood, who is a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Housing, Urban and Real Estate Research at Heriot-Watt University. I understand that you want to make some introductory comments, so I'll just pass over to you and then we'll take questions and discussions after that. Good morning and thank you very much. Maybe I'll start with a brief overview of what we've done. In August last year we were tasked by the Scottish government with carrying out a qualitative study into how the interim arrangements for the Scottish welfare fund were working. The aim of the study was to inform the permanent arrangements and specifically to add depth to the administrative and statistical data statistical evidence about the operation of the interim arrangements. What myself, Mandy and two colleagues from Heriot-Watt did was we firstly carried out interviews and small group discussions with third sector organisations that was in October and November last year. We interviewed 15 third sector support organisations representing a range of clients, various equality groups, various vulnerabilities. And then over January, February and March this year we interviewed 77 applicants to the Scottish welfare fund. We carried out in-depth interviews with them. The 77 people we interviewed again were quite varied in their background and circumstances. Some of them did not really have vulnerabilities, some of them had medium level vulnerabilities and some of them had highly complex needs. Again there was a good split between people who were successful in their application, those who were partially successful and those who were unsuccessful and again a good spread of equality groups and types of vulnerability. In terms of headline findings, in our view the interim arrangements are clearly a good start but there are areas for improvement. Some of our recommendations are probably quite straightforward and relatively easy to implement, some are probably less easy to implement. Looking at specific findings we found that Scottish welfare fund staff in general come across well and are helpful and supportive to applicants. But there is a problem with accessibility in that definitely not everyone who is in need and who could benefit from the fund is aware of it. Awareness and knowledge of the fund among third sector organisations staff varied so there is a room for improvement there. We found some evidence of gate keeping on the part of Scottish welfare fund staff and that's why we've put forward a recommendation that all attempts at applying should be logged onto the system. Some applicants who we interviewed were concerned about how long it takes to get a decision and there were also concerns that not all decisions are clear, it's not always clear how decisions are made and how they are justified so we've put forward recommendations with regards to that as well. Finally there is a room for improvement in terms of joined up working and signposting in particular. I think I'll stop here. Yes, I think broadly I would say that for the length of time it's been running and for the length of time it took to put up and running the scheme's made a very good start. I think we must commend staff for that. The staff come across well to the users and people feel that they are dealt with well, that people really empathise with their situation. They don't always get the outcome that they wanted but by and large they understand that and they realise that not everybody can get access to the moneys but as Philip said there are areas where we see the need for some improvement in terms of I suppose you would say how transparent the scheme is and how easy it is to access certainly that's two key areas for improvement and in terms of decision making making sure that advocates for applicants are kept in the loop because often it's the advocates rather than the applicants themselves who would engage in the review process because applicants tend to be vulnerable there is a tendency for them to give up if they get a negative response whereas obviously if they were in touch with someone who would help them as part of a review they're more inclined to be involved in a review so I think that's a particularly important aspect to improve on. Thanks very much. I'll start by asking just a couple of questions to get some clarification. After the SWF was introduced there was some widening and adaptation of the criteria. The people that you interviewed were some of them interviewed having been through the process before the changes and some after is that the case? Yes some of them applied to the SWF before October 2000, October last year when the criteria were relaxed for the first time but the criteria were fairly relaxed in April this year so people we interviewed obviously because we interviewed them between January and March so that latest change to the guidance is we didn't pick it up in our research. We were told at the outset the sort of principles of the SWF for it to be flexible and adaptable but in your reports and emphasis on strict terms to the rules and criteria rather than discretion and decision making was sort of evident. What was driving that? If people were those who were administering the SWF were adhering to strict rules and criteria then why were they missing out on the principle of flexibility and adaptability? Well what we found was that this could be attributed to the staff culture among revenues and benefits staff who are principally in charge of processing housing benefit and council tax, benefit or council tax reductions which do not require discretion so there is a there is this phenomenon which we call the cultural shift which they face which they face so yes they you know those are people who you know perhaps in the morning are processing housing benefit applications where where the criteria are very strict and there is there is no discretion and then in the afternoon they are processing you know Scottish welfare fund applications where where you know the emphasis is on discretion so there is there's you know they are under tension I would. There's a cultural thing rather than actually any. I think that's why in the recommendations one of the areas that we've pointed towards is staff training and perhaps mentoring through contact with maybe social work staff or staff that are engaged more with vulnerable groups who might who might be able to offer you know insights into the kind of broader skill set that that's needed to deal with quite complex cases and to to to have that flexibility and responsiveness. Thank you convener and good morning and thank you very much indeed for the report which I find very interesting. You mentioned Dr Shing so that the you know in terms of your recommendations some would appear to you to be easier to implement than others and some you said may be more difficult to implement could you give us a few examples of the ones at that end of the spectrum that you think might be more difficult. But we've put forward the recommendation that all applicants should be sent a decision letter and that advocates should be copied into the decision if the applicant has given the permission for SWF staff to do so. I think that's fairly straightforward and should be easy to implement but for example the issue of staff culture that's you know that requires more training you know it's it's it's less straightforward I think still doable but you know. I think the whole idea of discretion is quite difficult you know by its nature discretion starts to open up the possibility of variability and that's why I think accountability and transparency are really important and that's an area of where you know in terms of it not being zero cost. Having better monitoring of people who don't apply it you know that takes local authorities a step further than their monitoring at the moment and clearly you know ongoing monitoring is always an area that is costly and needs staff resources so if you if you are pointing towards monitoring gatekeeping then that level of monitoring is harder and it's quite a financial commitment to put structures in place to have very good monitoring to make sure that that your processes are robust and discretion is very hard to measure because obviously monitoring outcomes are are quite black and white but obviously discretion is about nuanced sort of picking up on picking up on things and interviewing well so asking people will tell me more about that in order to get the full story. I think some of our respondents were quite aware that they hadn't put themselves across as well as they might do and there were examples of people who had felt that they put themselves across a wee bit better when they had someone there to help them and so in in that respect some of the some of the recommendations around signposting and getting people in contact with people who can help them put across their their story well is useful but it's about the staff being good listeners and good questioners and that's that's quite a nuanced sort of area of training and and not without cost of course. Of course I mean I've always been a supporter of discretion in the benefit system at large and I'm just sorry to say that it was removed many decades ago and never restored by any subsequent government at Westminster. I think it's an essential component of fairness discretion but I do take on board very much what you said about culture issues, training issues and monitoring and accountability. Can I also ask in terms of hardship payments and the DWP? I mean what was kind of the experience of awareness you know you know the ability to actually receive hardship payments I mean what was in terms of the respondents that you spoke to what was their experience with that? Yeah we've had I don't know maybe eight or ten people interviewed had had an experience with applying for hardship fund some of them got it most didn't and I think most of them did not really like the experience of applying for hardship fund they found it you know the questioning just not a very nice experience. Inevitably some of our respondents do draw comparisons because you know they experience different things in their life and so there were quite positive comparisons between the Scottish welfare fund staff and some of the staff they had come in contact with in the DWP because inevitably you know they compare how they're treated by some people and I think the third sector staff also felt that one of the main advantages and the benefits of the Scottish welfare fund was the approach of the staff whether they effectively were able to exercise discretion or not you know you need some more work but they showed compassion and empathy and they dealt with people in a way that that was fair and right and I think there were some some less good comparisons with with the DWP treatment in some cases. Yeah I mean it's not the first time we've heard that and I and I always suspect it's not perhaps really much to do with the difference in the individual official I'm sure that all of them seek to do a good job across the piece and you know do the best that they can it may rather be that it's a difference in the kinds of rules they're applying and maybe there's a feeling with the social welfare the Scottish welfare fund that you know there's ownership of it people have been involved in creating it they've bought into it and maybe they don't feel that with some of the rules they're having to apply from the Westminster government but obviously I'm not seeking to have you straight into the murky world of politics so I'll perhaps stop at that point convener and pass on to somebody else. On the issue of discretion I think the fact that we are on course to you know the fund being spent in by the end of the having been spent by the end of the financial the last financial year I think that's that's a sign that perhaps staff are getting better at exercising discretion or gradually did get better at doing it over 2000 the last financial year and also obviously the the relaxation of eligibility criteria must have played a role in that. Thank you very much. So thanks convener. I was wondering just to begin with have you made any kind of assessment of the success of the fund itself in alleviating hardship clearly this is a replacement for another system so in some ways we're looking at whether the process works as a replacement but in terms of its overall objective of alleviating hardship is it successful? Well I haven't been asked to compare the Scottish welfare fund with the social fund so that's what we haven't looked into but it's clear that we've found clear evidence that where applicants were awarded full grants or substantial grants it did genuinely help elevate or prevent hardship so it's clearly a useful scheme and a scheme that helps you know some of the most vulnerable people people in society likewise we've found evidence that where applications were rejected or partial like small awards were given and that either you know possibly those were missed opportunities at preventing or alleviating hardship. It's the fact that you're not comparing with a previous scheme perhaps I mean to get on to my next question because it strikes me that there's a number of issues around how long it's taking to process and these are this is emergency help in crisis situations but there seems to be a number of situations where it's taking a little bit longer than perhaps you would wish and just some of the figures we got as a committee before it's suggested it wasn't obvious but it's suggested to me that it's actually slightly slower than the previous system now that frankly could be because nobody knows about this new system the old one was very short forever new about it and it's just a teathing problem as it were. Target processing times were shorter under the social fund so that's why probably there is that then under the Scottish welfare fund so that's probably why there is a difference in you know statistics you know waiting times where the targeted process by the end of the working day of under the social fund and under this working days but in our I mean Frank has got statistical and administrative data regarding waiting times our study was a qualitative study and we you know our sample was not a random you know representative sample so it's probably better to to ask Scottish Government research colleagues about about average waiting times but in our in our sample the majority of people got their decisions within the target processing time however you know if it's a crisis situation and you get your your decision after two working days you know that may not really be fast enough. There were examples of people who had you know who were situations where the stops really had been pulled out you know you did come across people who did get money within a couple of hours because they really needed something but then likewise you did get people who had waited the two days but had no electricity or food so and then maybe had gone to a food banked in the interim period so you know that there's clearly waiting two days has an impact when you have nothing at all and you know there's there's no getting away from You don't know the reason why it's got a two-day targeted processing time as opposed to previous? No okay the other issue that seemed to emerge is that there's a there's still a lack of choice the applicants themselves seem to be grateful and pleased when they are given an award but there's a number of comments about the lack of choice particularly about the lack of cash and the effect this has. Is that something that you you studied in depth it was just something that emerged from your questioning? Well it was more clearly fed sector support organisations were more concerned about the lack of choice than applicants who we interviewed themselves. In general as long as the method of payment suited the applicant they were not too bothered whether it was cash or vouchers for ASDA or you know if they were going to do their shopping at ASDA anyway it doesn't matter whether you have cash or vouchers so as long as the method of payment was convenient to applicants they weren't I mean a few a few were concerned about about the lack of choice but most weren't whereas support organisations were more concerned about people not having choice and it possibly being you know the meaning. I think there were examples on the other side of the coin where people found it easier that if they had a carpet fitted and they were quite vulnerable person for whom actually organising a carpet would be quite a challenge then actually having someone who would come and just lay a carpet for them or deliver a bed just removed so much of the stress of having to go and find one for someone who's quite vulnerable and not really you know good at shopping or looking for things or measuring things or whatever so I think there were there were actually some benefits from having that responsibility taken out of your hands but I can understand on behalf of the third sectors organisations who are often looking for people to have personal responsibility and personal choice then you they were quite sensitive to that not being there. Yeah I mean you know obviously in an ideal world you know people would be given choice of the method of payment but it clearly has cost implications for for local authorities so that's why we didn't put forward a specific recommendation there regarding you know. I think there's a there's an issue in general that the scheme is coming to replace an existing scheme and clearly the first priority has to be to make it work and make it work effectively but there's a second issue which is that this is an opportunity to reform the welfare approach we take to welfare and it's whether or not for example is trying to improve resilience you know something that we should build into this scheme or actually you know this scheme is for dealing with people in emergencies and crisis and frankly your resilience is not to be ignored but certainly a secondary factor so it's whether or not we can actually use your data and your research that you've done here to to draw larger to to to illuminate the larger picture about whether or not this scheme should be reformed itself it's clearly seems to be working as a replacement for the social fund but there are other obvious areas where we should think about the whole way we're approaching this this subject in terms of its success in helping people in their time of difficulty and also giving them the the support that would actually benefit them in both in the short and the long term. I suppose there it is where sign posting becomes very important and it's about not seeing the end you know having the carpet or the bed or the money is not the end of the process but the start of another one and that's about linking making sure that it's not an end point but a start and a link to local provision whether it's a social inclusion project or an employability project but it it kind of goes full circle on and possibly it's early days for that to be happening but certainly that we identified areas where sign posting could be better. The scheme itself is not designed to to deal with causes of long-term poverty and hardship so it's but with regards to you know what shape it may take when permanent arrangement or in the future or when permanent arrangements are in place or specified there's obviously our our research there is there is statistical evidence but there is also I would suggest to Scottish Government colleagues to to look at various local welfare assistance schemes that have been implemented by by local authorities in England because there may be you know specific you know solutions that they've implemented which are not part of the interim arrangements for the Scottish welfare scheme but which could be perhaps part of permanent arrangements. I've had a look at just recently I've had a look at what Elite City Council Manchester City Council and Liverpool City Council have have done how how they've what their local welfare assistance schemes look like and there are some they've definitely you know developed some solutions which are not part of the Scottish welfare fund at the moment which may be you know of relevance and possibly could be part of permanent arrangements so I can only encourage Scottish Government colleagues to you know to study some of some of those local welfare assistance schemes. I'll ask one final brief question Covina which is just that just this issue of choice again clearly some some applicants were given you know you know a starter kit for the flat and they were very grateful not to have to go and you know find a carpet and a cooker and all the rest and others where others others would have said you know I could have got a better bed myself you know and so on were you able to make a any kind of analysis of who had choice and who didn't have choice and whether that choice the fact that they had choice or not was an important factor you somebody would be grateful no matter what but how important was it to have choice and were you able to make any kind of qualitative assessment or comparison between the their satisfaction or the outcome of the process and success of the process in helping them with the element of choice itself? Well I think it's what we found was that people who didn't like the condition or the look of the items they received then said yes I would prefer to to have some choice in the first place but if if what people have received was you know of satisfactory quality and and they would have got similar items anyway then they were kind of less concerned about the lack of choice. I suppose sometimes there were a few examples where people got a voucher where it it was quite difficult to spend it so sometimes they had the choice but it was quite difficult for them to get something for that amount of money that fulfilled their needs so in the areas where you were given a fridge you could definitely get a fridge because you were given a fridge whereas in other areas where you were given 125 pounds and all you could find were fridges for 140 pounds then effectively you had to find some money and that was quite difficult so it's difficult because choice isn't always choice if it doesn't fulfill the the need so it I think it's it's probably a bit too simple to see that where people had choice they were happier than where they didn't have choice because sometimes having choice meant that the choice was between having 125 pounds that give you choice I mean the difference between you can either have a fridge or you can have a voucher that choice yes I think some people admitted that they wouldn't have bought the fridge if they'd had the money so quite honestly saying well I needed a fridge but if I'd given you know people yes I would maybe not have bought a fridge and certainly the third sector organisations raised that as an issue that where people have very little money it's very hard for them to make good choices or you know it's very hard I think I think the those few interviews where people mentioned made this kind of statement they they didn't mean that they would you know go and spend it on both they meant you know they would spend it on shoes rather than you know the fridge that kind of yes the heart of you know resilience the whole point is that people if you give people freedom they make the wrong choices but that's that's the whole point of resilience is making your choices for yourself thank you and I'm interested in the signposting and the advertising and the awareness of the fund itself did you come across any areas any local authorities where you felt that there was more awareness of the fund being in existence and if so what were they doing differently from some of the others in terms of advertising signposting the fund the knowledge and awareness of advertising was very low over across across the board I would struggle to think of a local authority that we could hold up as an example of someone who had you know made a big splash and people were very aware of it I think across the board where people were in touch with their housing association or their council or someone who could signpost them to the scheme and it worked well our concern is that there are people who are not in touch with a lot of services and so are possibly falling through the net and that just generally awareness certainly when we did the research it could be better and I awareness was quite low so it needs to be remembered that you know when the scheme was implemented there was so much going on in terms of welfare reform that perhaps some of advertising efforts from local authorities were not productive because sub-fed sector organisations were more you know preoccupied with other welfare reform changes. That's inevitably one of the difficulties in terms of this massive change happening all at one time it's very difficult for folk to get their heads round some of the very basic things and obviously like everything else you're focused in the one that affects you most rather than what you may see at that point in time as being my new shy. You talked about those folks who already had contact with social workers or other third sector organisations too being the ones who were most likely to be signposted to the fund. Did you find in any parts of the country that social workers or food bank staff or other organisations were better at that signposting than others? Were you asking folks where they heard about the fund and what help they had in trying to get to access the fund? I did a fair amount of interviewing in Glasgow and Glasgow is obviously a very different environment in other places so it has historically a very wide network of organisations it has a really very large housing association sector very strong community based work wider role very important across the board there so I'd say in Glasgow if there's lesson learning from within Scotland I think you know Glasgow has a lot of very interesting things going on and lots of people very very connected to services because of you know going back to sort of old partnerships across Glasgow so there was a lot of service provision there so people would probably know to go to the government law centre or money matters or or various various places in Glasgow that are just well renowned for helping you so they're very networked I would I suppose I would have some concerns whether the coverage in some rural areas where there just isn't the same level of provision might be quite patchy in comparison to the to the cities I think Dundee's probably quite similar in terms of that well we've also found some evidence that some support organisations were who were unsuccessful with support like supporting applicants to the Scottish welfare fund in that in that those applicants did did not get were rejected their applications were rejected then they were kind of discouraged from further you know I don't know from I suppose we did come across some third sector organisations that had possibly had a few negative experiences before the eligibility criteria were relaxed and that coloured their judgment about whether they would you know whether they would suggest that as a route for people in in need in future so I suppose for some of the some of the less specialist organisations they may be needing even more information or outreach to to get them back into the process I think the likes of money matters and the government law centre and very very strongly welfare orientated organisations will always use the fund heavily and encourage people towards it heavily some more minority third sector organisations if they have a bad experience and they don't see it as something that helps their service users they may may need to be brought back into the into the process more I've found in my own neck that we tonight were Dean C fine for example who are food fair share organisation and also have a food bank they've been referring folk obviously to the fund but beyond that they have the ability I would say to to help folk in other ways to try and move forward do you think the staff who are dealing with the Scottish welfare fund are signposting folks on to other things as well as they should be to try and get them out of of the crisis situation or is that not happening yet I think it's still quite variable there were examples of people people being signposted if they didn't get Scottish welfare fund so they would be signposted towards food banks very much kind of crisis response trying to deliver something I came across less and was less aware of more positive signposting that you know we have helped you and also as well as helping you in your current situation we're going to point you to this other furnished project or this employability project or you know something else I I think that part of it in terms of being holistic I don't think that's happening across the future preventative scenarios aren't in place yet yeah we we found it patchy and that's why we put forward a recommendation that decision letters should signpost people to you know support organisations in the in the area I think that would definitely improve you know make make it more joined up and holistic and and then ultimately you know this this ambition of this you know the main reason for for local one of the main reasons for for localising social fund was that local authorities would be better at integrating support so signposting is clearly you know at the at the heart of of of achieving that um that that ambition so that's why that recommendation we put that recommendation there was mr that would it said that this is possibly because it is in its early stages um in the the work that you've done um and obviously you've done some previous work too um do you think that um there is a learning process going on and that folk are actually um adapting to try and make things much much better um than than they were or or is it all too much for folk well clearly you know there are time constraints if you are a decision maker and you've got another person on the line you know um you are under pressure to answer that other call rather than spend you know five or ten minutes signposting um so that needs to be taken into consideration um but also there may be it's just um you know um it may be that um revenues and benefits staff have um you know um are less familiar with the local landscape you know support landscape than social work um department staff so that's probably where um you know more joined up approach more joined up work between the two departments would would be beneficial which would be in the interest of the pencil in terms of future prevention are there any local authorities that you came across who have started that situation of of of integration and not just relying on revenues and benefit staff but bringing others in um welfare rights and and others in to help in the process well we haven't interviewed um you know local authorities that we just spoke to um applicants and third sector organisations and first sector organisations because they they were mostly um cut off the decision making process they you know they um um they had no i don't think with yeah it's difficult to to to see what has been laid from the local authority because obviously um we didn't speak to local authority representatives specifically i think in Glasgow there are examples of partnerships that i think the local authority is kind of working with the Wheatley group and other other rsls registered social landlords in Glasgow and because they already have quite a strong partnership approach there so i think certainly there will be local authorities who have existing partnership approaches and will probably be more able to to involve other people and to tap into other resources and so there's probably a bit of learning there to be had um i suspect some other again rural authorities would be less networked because particularly where you get the local authority who's also the main housing provider of social housing it doesn't have a necessarily a big network of um housing associations or other providers to to tap into then that's more of a challenge there there will be good examples out there of partnership working but um you know it wasn't the the remit of our story to find them so but but they but they certainly exist because we know you know from other work that that they're there thank you very much thank you convener i think most things that i was going to raise that have been covered but i'd like to pick up on a couple of them i think what's coming through very very strongly is the training requirement that's not to say people haven't been doing a very good job in what is a new scheme but we may now convener be at the the natural breakpoint you know of this review where you say well let's relook at the training and i like the the idea more of the the holistic approach and joint training uh that allows um that sign posting that we're talking about so i think that's really important and to be emphasised the other thing that that worried me a bit and um ken raised it there's one of your recommendations about encouraging ways of speeding up the decision process particularly for crisis grants and it when you look at the the definition of a crisis grant um an emergency or disaster uh and then you think that perhaps they're not operating as quickly as they should again i wonder whether that's about almost a judgment and i think the word judgmental is used in the study by a couple of people a judgment that it's not quite the crisis that the person thinks is um and whether you picked up a feeling of what could be done to make to make that better and a crisis isn't it a crisis would you change the two day criteria for example because sometimes organisations work towards a target you know rather than dealing with something very quickly well clearly applicants crisis grant applicants we've spoken to they would welcome a shorter target processing time um there obviously resource implications uh as well um because you know if um somebody's phoning at quarter to five you know then um for for a crisis grant and the target is by the end of the working day then somebody needs to stay after hours and you know to process that application um um um but also i um you know there is there is an issue of um whether it could be possible to process crisis grant applications out of working working hours and and during weekends because if it is a crisis then you know it might happen quarter past five you know um so um that's led me on to my next bit and this is entirely anecdotal i don't know that i've picked up is that if you have a crisis it's on a Friday afternoon you can't see anybody till the Monday i mean have you come across um any administrators of the crisis grants and welfare fund generally that do have a helpline for example over a weekend nope no i suppose it's the downside of having um having a scheme that's administered by revenues and benefits it's a nine to five service and unless local authorities want to use their out of our social work service perhaps to you know as an alternative to to cover the the ours which obviously has its own coordination difficulties because then you're involving two departments instead of one um but but certainly i didn't come across the third sector talking about a weekend service um well in my interviews with with third sector they yeah this this issues issue has come up but um but uh it also um came up in applicant in a few applicant interviews and people were clearly upset that they couldn't access um emergency help during um over over the weekend and um again about monitoring um i mean again anecdotally i have heard cases where emergency social work has helped out and you know and then person is referred on so the emergency has been dealt with and then they're referred to the welfare fund and again i wonder if the monitoring of that is such that that kind of thing would become apparent or whether the monitoring would be such that when the person actually presents themselves at SWS staff that would look like the first contact so when you talk about i think it was every attempt at applying should be logged on to the system um how would you deal do you think it should be dealt with for example if social work department have dealt with it and then referred on test wf difficult one because the social work department might have been using their own section 12 or other arrangements themselves in order to because they have their own crisis funds so they they might well have filled the stock gap with their crisis funds or their crisis arrangements and then separately the person approached SWF because it's you know there are quite sort of sort of more complex cases there back to the almost the lack of a holistic approach to things well um to my knowledge section 12 um is harder to get than than um Scottish welfare fund so if somebody goes to social work department for section 12 payment um because this the Scottish welfare fund is out of out of office you know out of ours um the person maybe you know the chances of being successful are small at least to my to my knowledge um Alex thank you can be that it was a it's a very good report extremely useful but over necessity it's a snapshot would that be fair to say the given the the timings the we've gone through a year in which there was a great deal of variation and some serious problems in some areas with the scheme in its early days and that had to be sorted out very quickly are you confident that the timing of the snapshot has eliminated that early variation from the scheme well most of the people were interviewed applied for the scheme in the autumn and winter last year so that was a good half a year after after it started operating some of them applied in july and august last year so that was that was closer to the beginning of the scheme but most most applied when when you know um the scheme was was bedded in um the timing um this because the guidance was changed in october last year some of our some of people were interviewed applied before the guidance changed some of them applied after the guidance changed and it's um so in um in this respect it wasn't you know it wasn't perfect but um and obviously we didn't pick up the the experiences of people after the latest change to the guidance in in april this year um but um it was um yes it was a snapshot but because we interviewed quite a number of people it's quite a robust snapshot i would say you know that's kind of standard for qualitative social research is to have 40 you know 50 um you know interviews and with it 77 so i think it's quite robust in the sense i'm confident that it's robust i don't have any issues with your methodology but the one other area where we discovered significant variation especially in the early part of the scheme was between local authority areas uh where the performance in certain local authority areas was vastly superior to the performance in others initially and again that has been evened out to some extent a sample of 77 of necessity it cannot cover 32 local authority areas to what extent was there a geographical spread within year 77 we've covered 13 local authorities um and um from on from uh covering every you know point of the urban rural scale so from large urban to to remote rural but yes that's 13 out of 32 um so obviously we found some evidence of variation in in quality of delivery between local authorities but because we've only covered 13 local authorities and it wasn't you know like a large-scale survey we we can't really make firm statements um here but clearly you know the Scottish Government the policy makers will need to um consider consider how to make sure that um there is no postcode lottery postcode lottery once the permanent arrangements are in place so that you know one local authority does really badly and um there is no no mechanism in place to make it you know improve um the delivery there was some evidence in very early days of the scheme that there were massive differences in performance uh 200 to 300 variation in performance uh are you confident uh from the the timing you're interviews that that wild variation uh was effectively eliminated in the second half of this year's well we we in our in our study we didn't find anything like that you know that wide wide um variation in the quality of delivery we found some you know differences but not not massive but like I said you know maybe maybe because of of um which local authorities we we sampled um we didn't get the full picture so we we can't make a firm statement here on on what's actually happened to this variation in in the quality of delivery I think I think in future there's clearly a role for ongoing monitoring and you know if there if there were significant variations at the start and there've been improvements made now so there's not so significant variations in order to keep that the case then obviously the way the way forward is to to have ongoing monitoring or ad hoc revisits through your ongoing I mean the Scottish Government do have a sort of scheme where they where they visit I think the SWF or you know they have these they have these quality improvement visits so that's obviously there's a there's an in there you know there's a there's a kind of structure there to to use to maintain the the quality um and we've recommended sort of ongoing monitoring as part of the of being embedded within the process and I think that will be important to make sure that everybody stays on their toes and keeps the you know keeps the the quality going no question was going to be do you feel this is an exercise that would be worthwhile doing again in a year's time either for interim schemes or for successor schemes I think the the customer perspective is always really important I think your your quantitative monitoring always gives you the the the raw numbers and you can interpret them but there is always use in speaking to to people on the ground about their their experience of things and it's always a great insight it's not always affordable you can't always say that you'll do it on an annual basis or you know commit yourself to that but certainly a qualitative aspect and making sure you have some sort of voice in there for the for the consumer it's always always useful perhaps some of these elements might lend themselves to the work of a parliamentary committee for example thank you very much this is if I've exhausted your question so can I thank you very much for coming and helping us with your understanding of your your report can I ask one final question are you continuing with any work in respect to this or have you completed this and is there anything else that we might benefit from your knowledge well I'm I'm now leaving on a on a major element of the of a of a jrf funded study on destitution in the UK and definitely this is you know relevant we may see you before us again if you would take up an invitation to come in thank you and I've I've applied for for research funding from the rural institute for chartered surveyors for a small study on food banks regarding what proportion of families that are households that are food insecure do not have access to food aid but I'm still awaiting the the decision if I yeah so if I get that funding that that would be interesting to us as a committee so we may we may be in touch with you again at some point but thanks very much this morning for your help again thank you okay I'll suspend the meeting for five minutes before we go with this we're going to private session at this time